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Prior to its release in Japan on GameCube on January 27, 2005, Resident Evil 4 had perplexed all purists of the survival horror genre, presenting game mechanics in previews and demos that are strongly different from its predecessors and much closer to those of a third-person shooter. Jumps, climbs, swarms of enemies at the same time on the screen fully armed: where was Resident Evil, many wondered? Questions and doubts that took a back seat, however, when the game hit stores and, regardless of everything, it turned out to be a real masterpiece for level design, gameplay, graphics (at the time, perhaps, the best available on consoles) and longevity. Acclaimed by critics and the public, with millions of copies sold in its wanderings from platform to platform, conversion after conversion, Capcom's action horror game also arrives on Xbox One (and PlayStation 4) with an edition that of remaster, as we will see, it honestly has only the name. In short, waiting for Resident Evil 7, which we recently tried, we hoped to be able to console ourselves with this, but we were rather disappointed ...

Resident Evil 4 on Xbox One and PlayStation 4 is more of a simple port than a remaster edition

From the Hell of Raccoon City to that of El Pueblo

Six years have passed since the destruction of Racoon City and the collapse of Umbrella, and now former police officer Leon Kennedy is a veteran of the army special forces sent to Europe on a delicate mission: to save Ashley Graham, the daughter of the president of the United States of America held prisoner by a mysterious sect in a small remote village in the mountains of Spain. But in those parts there is something else wrong: there is talk of mysterious disappearances, of plagiarized people who go crazy and kill. Is there any link between these events and the sect? And who is behind this strange organization?

At the time of its release, as many of you will remember, the game proved to be revolutionary in terms of mechanics, especially considering the saga to which it belonged. With this game, in fact, Resident Evil turned definitively then taking an action drift not appreciated by most historical fans in the future. The first big difference from the past was the completely 3D environment with the fixed third-person view, placed directly behind the protagonist, which always remained in the lower side corner of the screen. Shot controllable within certain parameters, which in the years to come would be adopted by other famous games. Then the gameplay which, as mentioned before, turned towards a system that abandoned the puzzles, the slow rhythms and the tension in favor of another more focused on the action and on the first person shooter schemes. Key elements that we obviously still find today in this port, together with all those that at the time constituted a real novelty, such as the enemies. The creatures and the infected, in fact, are not the traditional zombies of the past, but for the most part fast, intelligent monsters capable of often using weapons, tools and interacting with the elements of the scenario such as stairs, doors and so on. This more aggressive but also reasoned and "team" nature of the enemies forces the user to take a more dynamic approach to the action, making the most of both the agility of the character, who in turn can use elements of the scenario to defend himself, hitting or obstructing passages, and some of his physical abilities to kick, climb or jump out of some windows, perhaps to avoid close collision or to get trapped. Not to mention the numerous weapons it will come into possession of over the course of history. The arsenal at Leon's disposal is more stocked than ever, and ranges from different types of pistols to bazookas, grenade launchers and sniper rifles. But they will all be needed, some more, some less, to deal with clashes that in the end turn out to be very fun and quite varied, on a par with the level of challenge, especially when you have to face the various bosses at the end of the area, even if sometimes they are present of QTEs.

Xbox One achievements

The objectives of this edition of Resident Evil 4 are twelve for a total of 1000G. To get them you have to progress in the adventure, to be completed perhaps at the highest difficulty, or to satisfy certain requests. how to collect all caps or defeat El Gigante.

Technically below expectations

For the rest, the game remains quite long-lived, at least for those who do not know it well and already know how to move and how to act. In addition, it can count on a decent replay value thanks to the things to discover and the extra modalities included, that ensure several more hours of fun.

Moving on to the technological part, which then in some ways is the one that sometimes interests the user most on the occasion of remastered titles for more performing consoles than the original ones, Resident Evil 4 HD Remaster is presented again with a graphic resolution equal to 1080p and with a frame rate anchored on 60 frames per second. But here the problems arise: the game, among other things the oldest of the three re-proposed in recent months by Capcom and therefore more in need of "care", has not undergone major improvements and indeed, to be honest, the graphics of the Japanese company have not tried too much even to insert some more complex textures. In fact, graphically, the game seems to be taken and weighted on Xbox One without further changes except, as mentioned, resolution and frame rate, with the latter parameter that guarantees greater general fluidity. Paradoxically, however, with the resulting graphic cleanliness, the visual rendering gains sharpness but loses it in everything else: the flat and low-resolution textures, for example, are much more noticeable and therefore more out of tune in the context., especially in close-ups of objects or in reverse shots of some element of the scenery placed near the camera. Instead, it goes a little better with the lighting system: in this sense, the developers have implemented a new process (or reworked the old one) for the management of light sources that significantly improves the play of light and shadows, but do not expect who knows what miracles. For the rest, even the polygonal size is exactly that seen on the old consoles and on personal computers, as is the sound, which however can boast the good old spoken in English and Spanish, with the classic Spanish subtitles. In the same way, even after many years, the music and sound effects remain spot on, which as always manage to recreate the typically horror atmosphere of the adventure in a valid way.

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Tested version Xbox One Digital Delivery PlayStation Store, Xbox Store Price 19,99 € Resources4Gaming.com

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7.1

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Resident Evil 4 remains an enjoyable title despite its age, capable of keeping itself afloat in the judgments thanks to its gameplay, despite the fact that in this remaster edition it has only the name. In fact, Capcom has limited itself to doing a mere porting of the old versions, raising the resolution and the frame rate but leaving everything else practically unchanged. The result is a graphically poorly optimized title, which still remains intrinsically valid from the point of view of playability, without prejudice to the fact that in these "conditions" it has reason to exist only for those who have never played it and are willing to overlook the quality. aesthetics of the product.